Alternative therapy may have led to deaths

COUNTRYSIDE Women with MS who drowned thought hot water might help: families
May 2, 2007

BY LESLIE BALDACCI AND BEN GOLDBERGER Staff Reporters

Two friends from Riverside with multiple sclerosis -- who drowned last week in a hotel hot tub -- were mourned Tuesday as their families drew some comfort that a determination of suicide was withdrawn.

As a funeral was held for Karen Lee, 68, and a wake for Nancy DeLise, 63, the Cook County medical examiner reclassified their deaths as due to drowning "pending further studies."

"Some documents found in the room kind of misled me to believe it was suicide because it mentioned God, doing certain ritual things, and one mentions hot tubs," said Dr. Joseph Cogan, the pathologist who performed the autopsies.

Family members of both women insisted they were pursuing alternative therapies when they died.

"She would meet her friends for lunch, she would go out to dinner, she loved to go shopping in Oak Brook, she took her grandkids horseback riding every week, she drove, she basically did everything," said Lee's daughter, Kimberly Fedorski. "She would never have killed herself."

Aside from the motorized scooter she used to get around, the grandmother of six and former hospital secretary led an active life, Fedorski said. After retiring from the family furniture business, DeLise was active with the Fillmore Center in Berwyn and the Frederick Law Olmsted Society. Bridge partners said she showed no MS symptoms.

"If there were two 20-year-olds who died in the hot tub, they never would have said it was suicide. The fact that they're a little bit older and the fact that they have MS, I think, contributed to the immediate dismissal that they must've killed themselves," Fedorski said. "It's not true."

"There's dignity in death and they did not honor that," said Mariano "Mike" DeLise, husband of Nancy.

Dr. Scott Denton, acting chief medical examiner, said he overruled the finding of suicide after hearing more details. Denton said the initial ruling stemmed, in part, from finding empty pill bottles and literature on holistic and spiritual healing and alternative medicine. Toxicology tests are pending. There were no witnesses and there was no surveillance of the hot tub.

Nancy DeLise swore that drinking colloidal silver mixed with Gatorade had helped reverse some of her MS symptoms. She supplied it to Lee, DeLise's husband said. The two women took the remedy with them last Thursday when they checked into the Countryside Holiday Inn for a soak in the hot tub -- another alternative therapy DeLise believed was helping. It was the first time Lee went with her, Fedorski said.

"Nancy DeLise has done this therapy a lot of times and thought it would be good for my mother, so my mom wanted to try it," Fedorski said. "They were dear friends and Nancy gave my mom a lot of hope."

The two were found by hotel staff in the hot tub by the pool, said Countryside Police Deputy Chief Scott Novak.

"Whatever happened, no one can explain," Mike DeLise said. "Maybe one got in trouble, the other tried to help."

A September 2000 article in the American Journal of Forensic Medicine & Pathology said people with MS, "if immersed in hot water, develop motor weakness, which may be so severe as to prevent them from getting out of the water."

A hot tub "is definitely not something our help line consultants would recommend," said Amanda Bednar, a Multiple Sclerosis Association of America spokeswoman.

"It was controversial what she did," said Mike DeLise. "This woman wanted to live."

RELIED ON ALTERNATIVE TREATMENT

Nancy DeLise began using colloidal silver to treat her multiple sclerosis in 2000. She had lived with MS, a degenerative disease of the central nervous system, for over 30 years, but in 1995 it morphed from relapsing remitting MS to the more severe secondary progressive MS. She described this as "my long road of decline." Below are excerpts from her journal at www.testimonials.silvermedicine.org from 2000 to 2002.

BEFORE COLLOIDAL SILVER

"My right had [sic] is numb, my feet, especially my toes are numb. When I get hot or tired my right leg does not lift well. It drags when I walk. After a day at work, I practically have to crawl to my car. I must hold on to a wall at all times. ... I cannot even go up a curb without holding on to someone or something. ...

"If I sit on the floor for any reason, like play with my grandchildren, I must first get on my knees, then on all fours, then finally I can get up. Just like a cow. ...
"I have night paralysis. I must throw my body in order to turn to another side. My legs are locked in the fetal position."

BEGINS TAKING COLLOIDAL SILVER

"Week 10, Seem to have small changes every day. Again my toes ached for several days, then I had more feeling in my toes. It's as though I have a non feeling pad at the bottom of my feet, but feeling all the way around. Like an animal's paw with the padded bottom. It seems I hurt for a few days, then something feels better."

"Week 20: Christmas Week. I had 16 people for dinner Christmas Eve. I had 7 people for dinner Christmas day, I worked 11 hours the day after Christmas, and I had 14 people for dinner the next day. That is four days out of four I entertained at my house. I can't remember when I did something like that. I still have night paralysis, but not nearly as bad as it used to be. ...
"TWO YEAR ANNIVERSARY: No more MS, no more symptoms."

(Many experts say colloidal silver has no health benefits. The FDA prohibits making therapeutic claims for colloidal silver products.)